Luleåbiennalen 2020 | A hand I wished I’d never touched

Luleå Biennial 2020:
Time on Earth
21.11.2020~14.2.2020

Information regarding Covid-19

Last chance The Luleå Biennial 2020: Time on Earth

Wednesday February 10, 16~20 and Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14, 12~16
Galleri Syster is open. Group show with Augusta Strömberg, Susanna Jablonski and Ana Vaz.

Thursday February 11–Sunday February 14, 12~16
Havremagasinet länskonsthall in Bodenis open. Group show with Beatrice Gibson, Susanna Jablonski, Birgitta Linhart, Fathia Mohidin, Charlotte Posenenske, Tommy Tommie and Danae Valenza.

Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14, 14~18
The former prison Vita Duvan is open with an electro acoustic installation by Maria W Horn.

Saturday February 13, 15~19
The artist Markus Öhrn and the poet David Väyrynens sound installation "Bikt" is exhibited on the ice by Residensgatan in Luleå. Listen to older generations of Tornedal women and their testimonies.

Book your visit via Billetto. Drop in is possible as far as space allows.

For those of you who do not have the opportunity to physically visit the Luleå Biennale on site, a radio show including artist talks, sound works and specially written essays will be on stream on Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14. Visit our radio page here.

The exhibitions at Norrbotten's Museum, Luleå konsthall, Välkommaskolan in Malmberget and the Silver Museum are unfortunatly closed.

2018~2021

A hand I wished I’d never touched
Alaa Abu Asad

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For many years now I’ve believed that if I forced myself to dream of somebody, I will eventually be with this person as in a love relationship. This indeed happened to me 3 years ago: I kept evoking dreams about a knight, and a while later, we officially became together.

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This notwithstanding the forced dreams, I’ve fallen in love with others and they loved me back. Yet, we’ve never come to agree to (officially) be together…

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There is this recurring dream which keeps coming to me since I was a kid, and it's never been that significant for me. However, more incidents lately are obliging me to recall it: A hand, or two, are harshly rubbing my face, annoyingly blocking my sight, and violently holding my breath. In my bed at my parents house, I’ve dreamt of our neighbour’s hand or hands – I can’t clearly remember – kneading my face as if it was a pizza dough being prepared for baking. Mum always convinced herself that that woman, our neighbour, practices sorcery, and that my dream is nothing but a product of witchcraft.

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Yesterday, I went to a man’s house in the south part of the city whom I’ve been chatting with for a while to fist him, and I was asked to choose between black and ordinary white latex gloves. I chose the blacks without hesitation.

Alaa Abu Asad lives and works between the Netherlands and Palestine. He received a BFA from the Department of Photography at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, and MA from the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) in Arnhem. Alaa’s work is mainly focused on the image and its various uses and readings.

www.alaaabuasad.com
مُدَام
alaabuasad.tumblr.com

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2020

Radio 65.22 is an auditory cross section of the biennial’s theme and contents, which amplifies and makes accessible written texts, framed situations and artistic voices. Radio 65.22 also enables an encounter with chosen parts of the Luleå Biennial’s activities for those who cannot experience the biennial in situ.

With Radio 65.22, we want to inscribe ourselves into an experimental and exploratory radio tradition, where the media itself becomes a platform for our ideas on radio and its capacity to depict and mirror the world around us. The task of Radio 65.22 is to tell of reality, in further ways that may not be possible through the image or the text.

Under Fragments: Time on Earth you will find radio programmes and sound pieces in different genres and forms that reflect this year’s biennial in various ways. Spirit of Place is a touring series of literary conversations on language and place. The culture journalist Kerstin Wixe takes us along to places that have played a significant part in an author’s stories, or carries the story’s history. Woven Songs is a deepening series of radio programmes that accentuate singing, the voice and the role of storytelling in the creation of new world views and orders, produced in collaboration with Public Art Agency Sweden.

Listen, reflect, enjoy!